How a merchant whose wallet was stolen at a construction site managed to track down the culprit while the thief bought lottery tickets with his money
- Sam Fraser tracked down his stolen wallet using GPS
A tradie used a digital GPS tracker to hunt down the alleged thief who stole his wallet before confronting and taking him down.
Queenslander Sam Fraser, 33, was hard at work on a construction site on Tuesday when his wallet was stolen.
Soon after, he began receiving notifications from his bank warning him that his card had been used to buy $30 worth of lottery tickets, Nine News reports.
Fraser was then able to use a small GPS device attached to his wallet to track the alleged thief’s movements from his phone.
Queensland tradedie Sam Fraser used a GPS device in his wallet to hunt down the man who allegedly robbed it (pictured, the alleged thief at a kiosk)
CCTV footage taken at a news agency shows the apparent thief buying lottery tickets before he was confronted by Mr Fraser.
I ran and grabbed it. I ended up hugging him from behind,” Fraser told 9News. “Then after about 5-10 minutes I had him sit on the floor.”
The 33-year-old was able to retrieve his wallet and later found his Medicare card and license left behind in a ‘disabled bathroom in one of the bins.’
It comes as Queensland continues to battle rising youth crime rates.
New data shows that children were responsible for around 20 per cent of the state’s total charges in December and January, the Brisbane Times reported.
Palaszczuk’s government recently passed new laws to criminalize children who break their bail conditions in a bid to reduce crime rates.
The laws also allow GPS trackers to be installed on children as young as 15 and for the court to declare the youth as serious repeat offenders.
